This weekend in pictures

These were all taken by my mother-in-law except the ones with her and Amy in the chair.

Not pictures, yet.

I HATE the new WordPress.com photo uploader.

I almost never get the Flash version, which works fine for me.

I get stuck with the Browser version, which only uploads one photo at a time, and never works to insert the picture in a post.

Such a pain.

I have found a workaround, but it’s a pain, too.

Basically, I look at another photo post in edit mode, and copy and paste the image code. Then I look at the media library and change all the specifics for the picture I actually want to use.

If it’s just one or two, not such a big deal, but I have a bunch from this weekend and, well, as I’ve already said, what a pain.

Chia kitty

On Monday I started a Chia pet for Amy; got it through a white elephant gift exchange at Christmas. Soaked it and the seeds Sunday night, spread on the seeds Monday night, and here it’s sprouted already.

It looks pretty creepy to me. Like lots of little worms. Hmmm.

Amy has plans

Amy dragged her diaper bag out of her room the same night (March 31) and proceeded to get ready to go.

Train, from March 31

Videos of Amy playing with her train set. Someday maybe she will figure out how it works. Meanwhile she just takes apart the track and the train and throws the pieces, which is fine and all part of her work.

Old T-shirt into wrap top

This used to be an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship t-shirt, from 1992 or 93. I used my dress / top pattern as a guide to create pattern pieces for a wrap top — a back, a back facing, a front wrap piece that reverses — and then eyeballing from the size of the armhole, I cut the existing sleeves shorter and narrower. That took two tries. I am very pleased with the results. The main downside to using the existing hems is that when you do the side seams, they look a little sloppy. But no hemming!

Here’s Amy wearing it; unfortunately, I didn’t realize a bit of the hem was tucked into her pants, but oh well.

Overalls-to-jumper reconstruction

I didn’t take pictures of the process. The overalls were tight in the crotch but too long in the legs. I did the following:

Cut the legs off before the crotch curve
Cut off the snap tapes
Cut the legs in half across the knees
Picked out the hems and other seams
Sewed the pieces in a circle, alternating a longish width with a shortish width
Used a long stitch to gather the circle, centering the embroidered motif — which didn’t really have enough white space between it and the cut edge, but at least the whole motif still shows
Sewed the circle to the garment body
Hemmed

What have we here?

The person who dug up the bushes from where the garden is now, before they had leaves or even buds, thought they were lilacs. They gave me some of the starts to put in a bucket of water until I had a chance to plant them elsewhere. To me, the top one does not look like lilac — I thought they had smooth, dark, heart-shaped leaves. There are 2-4 of these in the bucket. I just noticed today that there’s another start in the bucket that looks different — the bottom one — smoother bark, and bigger buds. Could that be lilac?

The garden, newly planted.

The garden, this morning, still damp with dew (and maybe with yesterday afternoon’s watering). That’s a birch in the middle back. To the left, from back to front, will be cantaloupe, lettuces, spinach and chard, and the unplanted part is reserved for tomato and pepper plants. On the right are pole beans (hence the poles!), bush pumpkins, more cantaloupe, bush acorn squash, and zucchini.

My father-in-law advised against mulching, since the ground isn’t warm enough yet. My dad advised that I shouldn’t chop off the vine crops if they overgrow their beds, but I can redirect the tips — he says often the best fruits are at the ends.

Bubbles

Mark showed Amy how to blow bubbles this afternoon.

We improvised a wand with a piece of plastic-coated wire — the kind the holds a toy against the cardboard insert in its package. Amy liked dipping the wand into the bottle.

She didn’t quite catch on to how to blow the bubbles, but occasionally she’d wave her hand fast enough that a bubble would form and fly away.

She was Very Upset when bubble-blowing time was over.